IBM Tops US Patent List with 9,100 Patents in 2018

IBM inventions include use of Artificial Intelligence to help people converse, protect the earth’s lakes and combat voice phishing

IBM inventors received a record 9,100 patents in 2018, marking the company’s 26th consecutive year of US patent leadership. The company led the industry in the number of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, cybersecurity and quantum computing-related patent grants.

“IBM is committed to leading the way on the technologies that change the way the world works – and solving problems many people have not even thought of yet,” said Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and CEO. “Our clients and their customers are the beneficiaries of these innovations, particularly our leadership in AI, cloud, blockchain and security for business.”

The industry-leading 1,600 AI patents IBM inventors were granted in 2018 include new ways to use AI to help us converse and protect the earth’s lakes and waterways. AI also played a large role in the more than 1,400 cybersecurity patents IBM inventors were granted in 2018, including an AI-powered security approach to combat voice phishing.

Some IBM patents granted in 2018 include:

Project Debater is a first-of-a-kind AI system from IBM Research that can debate humans on complex topics. IBM inventors patented an approach to use machine learning to identify evidence, such as relevant text segments in unstructured text data, which supports or opposes a claim or topic under consideration. This could help provide advancements in how machines and humans interact in conversation.

IBM inventors patented an intelligent system that could be used to identify, characterize, and monitor vertical temperature profiles and gradients, which affect marine life, in lakes and other aquatic ecosystems. Analytics combined with the IBM Cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) mapping has helped IBM along with collaborators to engineer the world’s smartest lake, Lake George.

“Phishing” occurs when a person or computer system tries to obtain sensitive information from unknowing victims. Most recently, phishers have turned to voice phishing, or “vishing,” in which unsuspecting victims are called directly and “vishers” use a voice over IP (VoIP) system to mask their identity. IBM has patented an AI system that could, with permission from the primary user, analyze conversation patterns between two parties in order to identify attempts by one of the parties to deceive the other. The system could send an alert message in real-time to warn a potential vishing victim and help company IT experts better prevent and manage computer and mobile security threats.

IBM inventors received more than 2,000 cloud computing patents in 2018, including a patent on a specialized monitor for unikernel-based virtual machines that takes a lightweight approach to improving isolation and security between a cloud application and its host, while also reducing provisioning times and improving performance. The approach is related to IBM’s research in container security and could enable organizations to more easily move data and applications securely across cloud and on-premises environments.

IBM inventors also continue to break ground in the development of blockchain and its rapid pace of global adoption. IBM was granted a patent on an approach for encrypting data stored in a blockchain, where transactions are encrypted using an encryption key. IBM clients can put data on a blockchain that they would like to share with other blockchain participants. However, instead of storing the data openly for any of the blockchain participants to see, clients can encrypt their data beforehand and only other clients that have been given a decryption key can read the data from the blockchain.

IBM researchers also patented significant inventions in quantum computing, including a new way of miniaturizing components to improve the performance of quantum computers.

DQ Live SlideShow

Pradeep Gupta, CMD, CyberMedia Group welcoming Dr Arvind Gupta, National Head Information Technology, BJP. Dr Gupta was the Chief Guest of the evening

(L-R) Sunil Sharma, VP, Sales, India & Saarc, Cyberoam and Dr Arvind Gupta, National Head IT giving the Dataquest Business Technology Award to Sapient Consulting for the best IT implementation in security, mobility, unified communications, and infrastructure management

Jubilant Lifesciences received the award for best IT implementation in analytics, mobility, cloud, ERP/SCM/CRM

ING Vysya Bank received the award for best IT implementation in mobility and ERP/SCM/CRM, infrastructure management

Escorts received the award for best IT implementation in analytics and security

Amity received the award for best IT implementation in security and unified communications

LV Bank received the award for best IT implementation in unified communications

Biocon received the award for best IT implementation in mobility and unified communications

Happiest Minds received the award for best IT implementation in security and cloud

HCL Infosystems received the award for best IT implementation in cloud and ERP/SCM/CRM

Evalueserve received the award for best IT implementation in security and cloud

Sterlite Technologies received the award for best IT implementation in analytics and cloud

Serco Global received the award for best IT implementation in mobility and cloud

Intellect Design Arena received the award for best IT implementation in cloud and unified communications

Reliance Entertainment received the award for best IT implementation in analytics and cloud

Canon India received the award for best IT implementation in analytics

Persistant Systems received the award for best IT implementation in analytics

ILFS received the award for best IT implementation in infrastructure management

eClerx received the award for best IT implementation in analytics

Sesa Sterlite received the award for best IT implementation in ERP/SCM/CRM

Hero Moto Corp received the award for best IT implementation in ERP?SCM?CRM

KPIT received the award for best IT implementation in unified communications

JK Tyres received the award for best IT implementation in analytics

Idea Cellular received the award for best IT implementation in analytics

Godfrey Philips received the award for best IT implementation in infrastructure management

Aviva Life Insurance Co received the award for best IT implementation in infrastructure management

Hindalco received the award for best IT implementation in analytics

Aircel received the award for best IT implementation in unified communications

Dr Lal Path Labs received the award for best IT implementation in cloud

Gati received the award for best IT implementation in mobility

Perfetti Van Melle received the award for best IT implementation in cloud

Sheela Foam received the award for best IT implementation in mobility

Tata Communication received the award for best IT implementation in ERP/SCM/CRM

NDTV received the award for best IT implementation in analytics

Hindustan Power received the award for best IT implementation in mobility